Fluid Architecture

uid architecture

Ques�oning the Validity of Fluid Architecture as a Socially Progressive Model through Case Studies

zhini poh_

First Printed Jan 2017

Dissertation

fluid architecture

Questioning the Validity of Fluid Architecture as a Socially Progressive Model through Case Studies

zhini poh_ Dissertation Tutor: Douglas Spencer

M.Arch Architecture RIBA Part II University of Westminster, London First printed: Jan 2017.

First Printed Jan 2017

a b s t r a c t_ This dissertation aims to draw relations between fluid container (the appearance and the built form) and the fluid relations contained (the inhabitants and their interactions). It questions whether an architecture of fluidity can be conceived as a socially progressive model supporting the liquid society.

MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome

by Zaha Hadid Architects and EPFL Rolex Learning Centre by Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA were used as primary case studies for the dissertation. Based on observations of circulation during building visits, respective spatial and organizational strategies were critically evaluated. Fluid language involving curved surfaces and streamlined features could result in modes of navigation of opposite spectrums: open-ended or prescriptive. This would subsequently lead to liberation or limitation of inhabitants’ social relations. The spatial organisations are accessed in relation to the philosophy of the specific typologies, namely the art museum and the learning centre typologies. The architects’ fluid agenda, their background and origins are studied to reveal the real implications of the curves in these buildings.

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a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t_ I am profoundly grateful to: Douglas Spencer ...for being an inspiring and supportive dissertation tutor.

James Phillips Foundation ...for their generosity in funding my travel to do the case studies.

Staff at MAXXI and the EPFL Learning Centre ...who opened their archives and knowledge for the research during my visits.

Wanqing Wong, Hua Chern, Poh Swee Hiang, Tia Shaker, Laura Nica, and Jessica Clements ...for assisting me in academic writing.

Family ...whom has encouraged me to always seek for knowledge and exposure.

Poh Ziyang ...for sharing his expertise in photography.

Hua Chern ...for unremitting support.

zhini poh Dissertation Tutor: Douglas Spencer M.Arch Architecture RIBA Part II, University of Westminster, London zhinipoh.com James Phillips Architectural Travel Prize: http://www.jamesphillipsfoundation.com/ first printed. Jan 2017 4

c o n t e n t_ Abstract

3_

Introduction

7_

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Fluidity and Progress

‘Fluidity’ as a Concept

13_

Fluid Architecture: Aesthetic or Progress

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Social Responsibility

23_

The New Socio-Economic Relations

25_

01_

F l u i d M o d e l 0 1 : MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI Century, Rome

The Container: Physical Elements of Flow

33_

The Contained: Complexity and Fluid Diagram

48_

Aesthetic and Societal Function: Architectural Representation and Fluid Totality

52_

02_

F l u i d M o d e l 0 2 : EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne

The Container: The Retreat of Physical Elements

63_

The Contained: The Relationalist and Cultural Implication

78_

Aesthetic and Societal Function: Physical Reality over Ideology

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Conclusion

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A p p e n d i c e s_01 & 02

92_

Bibliography

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List o f Images 5

103_

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i n t r o d u c t i o n_ Recent controversy of cost management in Zaha Hadid Architect’s (ZHA) Tokyo Olympic Stadium project1 and labour management in Al-Wakrah Stadium2 have revealed the expense of spectacle in fluid and curved forms.

Behind contentious discussions on technicality and practicality such as budget overruns, compromise in functions, and ethical issues concerning labours during construction, Schumacher coined the term ‘fluid ideal’ with a social underpinning:

The beauty of the results, both in the studies and the eventual buildings, is deceptive because Had id and her office do not pursue form simply for the sake of form. The research is preparatory for ex panding the formal repertoire necessary to solve the needs for greater levels of spatial variety and for mal complexity in contemporary living conditions.3

Whilst it is irrefutable that the fluid model has driven a progressive leap in terms of construction technology and formal versatility, its social claims are contentious and unattested. Different terms have been coined to architecture with curvaceous forms and flowing spaces, such as blobitecture, fluid architecture, complex architecture, etc.4 However, not many studies have been done in comparing these models. They have often been bound under a generic category with stereotypical taglines associated to aesthetic and progress (Refer to next chapter: Fluid Architecture: Aesthetic or Progress).

1 O. Wainwright, ‘Zaha Hadid’s Tokyo Olympic stadium slammed as a ‘monumental mistake’ and a ‘disgrace to future generations’, The Guardian, [Website], 2014, para. 1, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2014/nov/06/zaha-hadids-tokyo-olympic-stadiumslammed-as-a-monumental-mistake-and-a-disgrace-to-future-generations, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

2 V. Quirk, ‘Zaha Hadid on Worker Deaths in Qatar: “It’s Not My Duty As an Architect” ‘, Arch daily, [Website], 2014, para. 1, http://www.archdaily.com/480990/zaha-hadid-on-worker-deaths-in-qatar-it-s-not-my-duty-as-an-architect, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

3 J. Giovannini and D. Mertins, Zaha Hadid: Thirty Years of Architecture Hadid, New York: Guggenheim Museum Publishing, 2006, p. 21.

4 G. T. Ghadim, ‘Geometry, Form and Structure Relationship in Blob, Liquid and Formless Architecture’, Master of Science Thesis: Eastern Mediterranean University, 2013, p.3.

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The writing of this dissertation intends to critically examine and uncover the potential of Fluid architecture in generating various spatial diagrams and their implications on social relations within the buildings. Few enquiries central to the dissertation are:

What is it that flows? The container (the appearance and the built form) or the social relations contained (the inhabitants and their interaction)?

How might a ‘fluid’ container cause a ‘fluid’ social effect?

Could this ‘fluid’ container or the contained contribute positively to an increasingly liquid society?

Case studies are undertaken as one of the main strategies of inquiry. As such, extensive site visits to the two buildings and surrounding contexts present major sources of information. Circulatory routes, movement of the visitors, and relationship between the container and the contained were carefully observed during the site visits.

Recordings, videos and diagrams were extensively documented as evidence and basis of the study; the set-up of these methodologies will be described in more detailed prior to analysis (Refer to chapter: Fluid Models 01).

Information from the first-hand experience was critically evaluated against the architects’ background and also the rhetorical discussions on mainstream media to challenge and test out these social claims.

The buildings chosen for case studies are MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome by Zaha Hadid Architects (Fig. 1) and EPFL Rolex Learning Centre by SANAA (Fig. 2). Both buildings manifest fluid properties in terms of physical appearances and organisational diagrams. Behind these fluid properties, both buildings are driven by social agenda (Refer to chapters: Fluid Model 01 & 02). The architects drew their respective concerns in providing an upgrade of architecture model that will better facilitate the shifting of twenty first century socio-economic relation (Refer to next chapter: Architects’ Responsibility). Despite these similarities, hypothetically the two case studies have distinctive spatial and organizational strategies.

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Fluidity could be manifested in two aspects: physical appearance (the container) and spatial (the contained).

They could cause internal circulation of the opposite spectrum: prescriptive or open-ended. To be considered as socially progressive models, they have to instigate spatial agencies to facilitate the new socio-economic relations (Refer to next chapter: The New Social Relations). The internal organisation has to allow for proliferation of social relation specific to its typologies and philosophies. The philosophies of twenty first century art will be reassessed in the case of MAXXI; whereas university faculties’ ethos will be looked at for the Rolex Learning Centre.

Conceptual aspirations have to be weighed against the physical reality, as often it is hard to draw concrete implications and derive societal function from an abstract or a theoretical notion.

It is worth mentioning that the buildings are not presented as comparative case studies where one is directly compared to another; nor is it a typology study. They should be viewed as separate cases; associations of fluidity and their social claims to be drawn within respective approaches.

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Case Studies

Fig. 2: The EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne by SANAA.

Fig. 1: MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome by Zaha Hadid Architects.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh. See List of image, p. 103, for full images referencing)

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

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Fig. 3: Gaseous.

Fig. 4: Liquid.

Fig. 5: Liquid.

(Source: Texture 101)

(Source: The Nature Conservacy)

(Source: Wallwide)

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f l u i d i t y a n d p r o g r e s s_

‘Fluidity’ as a concept

flu·id (flo͞o′ĭd) n. a liquid or gas A continuous, amorphous substance whose molecules move freely past one another and that has the tendency to assume the shape of its container; 1 It has often been used to describe a social or economy state which is uncertain and mobile; and used as a metaphor for present stage of modern era:2 a. Changing or tending to change; variable: a fluid situation fraught with uncertainty. b. Characterized by or allowing social mobility: a fluid society.

(Fig. 3-5)

1 2

‘Fluidity’, The Free Dictionary, 2016, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fluidity, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

Ibid.

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Fig. 6: Mutually accentuating systems: topography, mass- Fig. 7: Network script accentuates undulated surface – Maring, path-network, Masterplan Competition, Appur, India, en Klasing & Martin Krcha, Masterclass Hadid, University of ZHA, 2008.

Applied Arts, Vienna.

(Source: Parametric Diagramme, P. Schumacher, 2010.)

(Source: Parametric Diagramme, P. Schumacher, 2010.)

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Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) coined the term ‘fluid’ in Total Fluidity (2000-2010)3 and Fluid Totality (2010-2015)4.

The ‘fluid’ ideal here is referential to a social claim: The notion of a fluid totality can be understood as both the characterization of an existing societal condition and as an architectural concept/ambition to make this condition perceptually palpable within the global built environment and to further intensify and facilitate its complex flourishing.5

The ideal put forward was to be realised by parametric tool - a software tool rooted in digital animation techniques that involves the deployment of algorithms and associative logics. Via the method of continuous differentiation, the potentials of iterations, versioning and mass customisation is made possible(Fig. 6-7). It could also form precise formulation and execution of intricate correlations between elements and subsystems.6

Parametricism has created a strong aesthetic stylistic that made ZHA’s projects stand out amidst the pluralism of styles in contemporary architecture. Likewise in Gehry’s works, they demonstrate a particular strong architectural language. ZHA’s works resemble the state of liquid: flow or streamlined, continuous and seamless.

Aesthetically it is the elegance of ordered complexity and the sense of seamless fluidity, akin to natural systems, that is the hallmark of parametricism.7

ZHA also approached space as if they had fluid properties: vectorised fields but not static objects. Enclosures or forms are warped and propelled into dynamic configurations. Just like natural systems, repetition and regularity are not favored. Almost each panel has unique degrees of curves that assemble a constantly evolving facade; like the stream in the river or the molecule in a solid melted down. It is a model that rejects both production as repetition or the drive towards predetermined ends.8

3 P. Schumacher and Z. Hadid (ed.), Total Fluidity: Studio Zaha Hadid, Projects 2000-2010 University of Applied Arts Vienna, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 2011, p. 1.

4 Institute of Architecture, Z.Hadid and P. Schumacher, Fluid Totality: Studio Zaha Hadid 2000-2015. University of Applied Arts Vienna, Basel: Birkhauser, 2015, p. 1.

5 Ibid, p.1.

6 P. Schumacher, ‘Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design’, AD Architectural Design - Digital Cities, Vol 79, No 4, July/August 2009, p. 14-23. Available from: Wiley Online Library, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

7 Ibid, pp. 14-23.

8 N. Last, ‘Architecture and the Image of Fluidity’, GLOBALIZING ARCHITECTURE/ Flows and Disruptions, Miami Beach, 2015, p. 1.

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Fig. 8: The Fluid appearance and built form. Galaxy Soho Fig. 9: Bespoke Cladding over Structural elements. Heydar

by ZHA. Aliyev Center by ZHA. (Source: Arch Daily, 2012)

(Source: Arch Daily, 2013)

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Structural elements are often hidden under bespoke panels. Sometimes they are made less obvious by masking signs of fabrication with seamless or smooth materiality(Fig. 8-9). Perhaps this is to simulate the softness and lightness of fluid property; or the continuity of fluid stream in movement.

We could, therefore, derive two broad definitions of ‘fluid’ by ZHA’s fluid ideal: - The appearance and the built form (the container); and -

the inhabitants and their social relations (the ‘contained’)

The former definition of ‘fluidity’ is an architectural stylistic pursuit manifested in a physical form. Whereas the latter is a social endeavour which is more intangible. This dissertation would use the term ‘fluidity’ according to these two definitions.

Before the emergence of curved forms, there were several architectural movements that introduced concepts such as de-construction, dis-location, de-coding and de-territorialization (Fig. 10). ‘Function of the Oblique’ (Fig. 11) was one of such groups, formed by Claude Parent and Paul Virilio from Architecture Principe group. They promoted continuous, fluid movement and forced body to adapt to instability: ‘…we wanted above all to create an “ordinary place” where the experimentation replaces contemplation, where the architecture is experienced through movement and the quality of that movement.’ 9 In Kunsthal in Rotterdam, by OMA has also experimented with sloping floor and tightly organized ramps for functional spaces, to liberate building volumetric organization or connection from a typical modernist’s approach (Fig. 12). On top of these two examples, some other commonly used strategies to defy concepts of modernity are multiplicity, heterogeneity, otherness, and virtuality10.

Following these concepts, ‘fluidity’ has become formally expressive in a few architects’ works, including ZHA’s and Gehry’s. Fluid and self-organising ideals such as Autopoiesis of Architecture, Fluid Totality, and Agent-based Parametric Semiology are rationales given behind these formally expressive works; these ideals are claimed to enable engagement with the complexities and uncertainties within the new society. Patrik Schumacher, the principle of ZHA, even envisioned parametricism to lead the next universal epochal style: the all-inclusive style for the next architectural period.

9 C.Parent, P. Virilio, M. Mostafavi, The Function of the Oblique: The Architecture of Claude Parent and Paul Virilio 1963-1969, London: Architectural Association Publications, 1996. p. 5.

10 P. Schumacher, ‘The AA Design Research Lab- Premises, Agenda, Methods’, Research and Practise in Architecture, Alvar Aalto Academy: Building Information Ltd, 2000, pp. 5.

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18

(Source:http://archidose.blogspot.co.uk/)

Vitra by Frank Gehry

Vitra Fire Station by Zaha Hadid

Deconstructivism 1

2

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry

Folding 3 Kunsthal,Rotterdam by OMA Blobitecture

Kunsthaus by Cook Fournier 4

5

Iconic/Fluid/Deconstructivism

Source: 1. designboom.com 2. thevalueofarchitecture.com 3. metalocus.es 4. weburbanist.com Heydar Aliyev Center by ZHA 5. commons.wikimedia.org 6. ruggeroarena.com 7. kjprofit.com 8. designboom.com 9. dezeen.com

6 MAXXI, Zaha Hadid Architects(ZHA)

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Fluid

See List of Images, p. 103, for full images referencing

Fluid

Fluid

Okoyama University by SANAA 8

Fig. 10: Jenck’s Evolutionary Tree (opposite) to outline positions of movements in relation to ‘Fluidity’. These movements are deconstruction, folding, blobitecture, new complexity paradigm, iconic building, etc. It was also observed that there are no definite definition for these movements or styles.

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Fluid 9 EPFL Rolex Learning Centre by SANAA

Fig. 11: The Function of the Oblique Fig. 12: Kunsthal, Rotterdam by Rem Koolhaas.

Diagram by Architecture Principe (Source: J. J. Barba, Metalocus) group.

(Source: The Function of the Oblique, p. 12)

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Parametricism is architecture’s answer to the challenges and opportunities of the (post-fordist) information age, just as modernism was architecture’s answer to the (fordist) mechanical age. The challenges that post-fordist information society poses to architecture issue from the new diversity and intense interconnectedness of all social processes. Architecture has to find ways to spatially network divers, interlocking social processes in legible, high density agglomerations.11

The use of parametric software without allowing maximal differentiation to be achieved, is not considered as parametricism coined by Schumacher. Schumacher claims to fully utilize parametric tool is to ‘achieve higher densities of communication and event participation through strategies of continuous differentiation, deep layering, and simultaneity’12. He disapproved how late modernist architects like Norman Foster use parametric tools to maintain a modernist aesthetics. ‘Foster is using the parametric set ups to absorb complexity with a minimum of inconspicuous differentiation.’ Schumacher said. ‘Parametricist sensibility pushes in the opposite direction and aims for a maximal emphasis on differentiation.’13

Standing in parallel within the spectrum, some of SANAA’s buildings also manifest ‘fluidity’ (Fig. 13). They talked about the physical reality of curved planes and cylindrical walls to create relational opportunities. They are interested in how the disintegration of physical relations in society poses a spatial effect on built forms.

Without being literal (the fold, the field) the framework SANAA sets up with their designs addresses new types of spatial and mental navigation the information age has introduced. One browses from space to space in a non-hierarchical, non-linear manner, to encounter and connect.14

It is fascinating to note that parametric tools were not used to achieve the varying curved surfaces in SANAA’s works. They mainly engage with physical model making with the help of computer software for fabrication.

11 P. Schumacher, ‘In Defence of Parametricism’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, para. 1, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/ In%20Defense%20of%20Parametricism.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

12 P. Schumacher, ‘The Meaning of MAXXI – Concepts, Ambitions, Achievements’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, The Art Museum as Catalyst, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

13 P. Schumacher, ‘Parametric Diagrams’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, A New Style Parametricism, http://www.patrikschumacher. com/Texts/Parametric%20Diagrammes.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

14 ‘ “Relations” The SANAA Studios 2006–2008: Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism’, SO-IL, 2009, Para. 10, http://so-il.org/writing/relations/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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Fig. 13: Tron Legacy Set has striking resemblances (left) to Heydar Aliyev Center by ZHA (right) (source: SkyscraperCity.com(left), archdaily.com/ (right)).

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Fluid Architecture: Aesthetic or Progress The fluid appearance disrupts the conventional semiotic understanding of a building, or the association of meaning via visual clues. Due to the novelty of its aesthetic, fluid forms have been consumed as a notion of futuristic association and progression. Streamlined, smooth surfaces and seamless characteristics have always been portrayed in the science fictional movies as futuristic settings. Some of them have shown striking resemblances to the fluid architectural trend, including Tron Legacy(Fig. 13).

The disconnection between buildability and aspiration imposes a major concern on the ethical relevance of the fluidity idealism. Within the built industry, some criticise the construction ethics of these fluid models at our frugal time of economic and environmental crisis. They denounced their works as individual aesthetic expressions at the expense of multiple actors in the construction industry. 15

The success of Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in generating revenue from tourism has caused fluid architecture to be an aesthetic commodity. These iconic sculptural building had been commissioned by cities to generate economic growth through tourism. It had become a social status for cities to create their own ‘Bilbao Effect’: a sign of progress and forward.

Social Responsibility In Autopoiesis of Architecture Vol II, Schumacher outlined the importance of architecture in providing clues to navigate through social life-processes. Organisation and articulation are the two main strands identified by Schumacher that architects have to be aware of when designing a building.

Organisation involves ‘the functional allocation of spaces’16: Some strategies such as compartition, distribution and composition are used to divide spaces according to function, hierarchy and privacy. Articulation, on the other hand, is concerned with ‘making designation of uses legible’17: The classical columns of different orders, for instance, disseminate semiological associations with institutions of higher authority and act as geographical bearings in a city.

15 V. Quirk, ‘Zaha Hadid on Worker Deaths in Qatar: “It’s Not My Duty As an Architect” ’, Arch daily, [Website], 2014, para. 1, http://www.archdaily.com/480990/zaha-hadid-on-worker-deaths-in-qatar-it-s-not-my-duty-as-an-architect, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

16 P. Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Vol.2: A New Agenda for Architecture, London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2012, p. 44.

17 Ibid. p. 44.

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When social-economic relations shift, architecture eliminates and includes. Schumacher illustrated the shift from classical to modernist movement: ‘Classical architecture uses repetition, symmetry and proportion; Modernist uses fewer constraints, allowing for symmetry.’18 The tolerance in having more compositional freedom reflects the dissolving of institutional structure in the modernist era. It also reflects the principles of industrial mass production ‘by means of separating parts and allowing each part to develop an independent morphology according to functional requirements’19, of which has enabled heterogeneity in the production. The notions of composition and ornamentation have become redundant as the modernist finds beauty in the value of utilitarian and efficiency instead.

Architects’ tasks are, therefore, to spatially frame and order emerging socio-economy and communication processes. The central endeavour to ZHA’s practice, as outlined in Autopoiesis of Architecture, is ‘the question of how a given social order can be facilitated by a corresponding architectural order.’ 20

Similarly, SANAA’s works have been revolving around spatial framing of the emerging social relation. They are particularly concerned about the advent of virtual and digital realm. As described by SO-IL, whose founding partner, Florian Idenburg, has formally worked for SANAA, ‘Society’s systemic relocation to the virtual is greatly affecting a traditional sense of social space.’ In an interview for Hunch 6/7, Sejima described SANAA’s intention in responding to the virtual phenomenon: ‘In an age of non-physical communication by various means, it is the job of the architect to provide real spaces for direct communication between people.’21

Both ZHA and SANAA have situated their practice in response to contemporary social relations. Their works exemplified distinctive approaches of re-framing of the post-fordist society and its characteristics (Refer to chapter: The New Socio-Economic Relation). Instead of looking at architecture’s ability to form flows or seamlessness in its physical appearance, the writing in the case studies intends to examine the social agenda that lies beneath the fluid characteristics and evaluate progressiveness based on the facilitation of social responsibility outlined

by ZHA and SANAA.

18 P. Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Vol.2: A New Agenda for Architecture, London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2012, p. 57.

19 Ibid. p. 57.

20 Ibid. p. 52.

21 K. Sejima, ‘Face to face’, Hunch 6/7. 109 Provisional Attempts to Address Six Simple And Hard Questions About What Architects Do Today And Where Their Profession Might Go Tomorrow, Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 2003, p. 407.

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The New Socio-Economic Relations The advent of computer-based production technologies offers bespoke services; overturning economies of scales with economies of scope. As compared to the mass production in fordist era, commercial production today requires more flexible general-purposed machineries with a broadly educated and innovative workforce.

This shift in the mode of production is described as ‘micro-economic revolution’ in Immaterial Labour; transitory, flexibility, and mobility are highlighted: Small and sometimes very small ‘productive units’ (often consisting of only one individual) are organized for specific ad hoc projects, and may exist only for the duration of those particular jobs…Precariousness, hyper exploitation, mobility, and hierarchy are the most obvious characteristics of metropolitan immaterial labour.22

Commodities shift their forms from physical to intellectual production, giving rise to the ‘Knowledge Economy’.

This economy, alongside with the digitisation of things, has enabled economic and social relation processes to be carried out in the virtual realm. The traditional sense of social space is changed, as described by SO-IL: ‘Where in a pre-network culture, architecture shaped the social realm; accumulating in memory to form historical significance, it risks becoming the frictionless, temporary carrier of the virtual.’23 Ironically, technological companies, for instance, believed that values such as collaboration, imaginative thinking and interaction are positive in contributing to its progress.24

Dissolving in societal hierarchy has been a constant theme in the new socio-economic relation described. Individuality used to be undesired in the ‘Tiller Girl’ Dancing Group, described in Mass Ornament by Sigfried Kracauer.25 Today, the individual and smaller collective choices or agency are seen as positive intrinsic values that would result in progressions in societal, economical and political realms.

22 M. Lazzarato, ‘Immaterial Labour’, in P. Virno and M. Hardt(ed), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006, p. 5.

23 ‘ “Relations” The SANAA Studios 2006–2008: Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism’, SO-IL, 2009, Para. 13, http://so-il.org/writing/relations/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

24 C. McClellan, ‘The Google Effect’, 2013, http://www.carr-mcclellan.com/insights/the-google-effect-how-high-tech-companies-are-impactingbuilding-architecture-and-design/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

25 S. Kracauer, The Mass Ornament, trans. T.Y. Levin, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995, pp. 75-86.

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Fig. 14: ‘Google Effect’ typology that offers ‘Ubiquitous Spaces’ with a variety of furnitures. Google East Coast Headquarters shown.

(Source: Manhattan Office Design)

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Henceforth, architecture has been presented with the unprecedented challenge to spatially re-frame and re-order this post-fordist socio-economy and communication processes. One of the responses is ‘Google Effect’(Fig. 14) : a new office typology akin to a mini college campus that has burgeoned especially amongst the technology companies. The typology has ‘ubiquitous spaces’ with few, or none, private offices, and a variety of furnitures to offer options.26 ZHA and SANAA, on the other hand, are some of the architects who presented ‘fluid models’ as the solutions. It is important, therefore, to reflect on these social claims on ‘fluid’ built environment.

Many architects expressed their frustration on how architectural discourse mainly lingers around the container (the built form) but not the contained (space, inhabitants, and their interactivity). Rem Koolhaas lamented in the ‘Junkspace’ regarding a similar concern. He claimed this neglect of ‘space’ (the contained) to be the cause of the urban disarticulation, or the pluralism in styles, we see in the contemporary architectural field today.

When we think about space, we have only looked at its containers. As if space itself is invisible, all theory for the production of space is based on an obsessive preoccupation with its opposite: substance and objects, i.e., architecture. Architects could never explain space; Junkspace is our punishment for their mystifications.27

In response to this knowledge gap, the dissertation intends to draw relations between the two; to reflect on the container’s role and its implication on the subjects contained. My hypothesis is that disparate spatial qualities and organisational strategies could have resulted from the same language of curved surfaces and streamlined features. They could dictate modes of navigation of opposite spectrum: open-ended mode or prescriptive. The former mode of navigation could liberate social relations and facilitate more ad hoc social interaction; whilst the latter mode of navigation could constrain social relations and limit inhabitants’ spatial or social subjectivity. If fluid architecture were to be put forward as a socially progressive model in congenial to the new socio-economic relation, it has to empower subjectivity, instead of constraining it.

26 C. McClellan, ‘The Google Effect’, 2013, http://www.carr-mcclellan.com/insights/the-google-effect-how-high-tech-companies-are-impactingbuilding-architecture-and-design/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

27 R. Koolhaas, Junkspace, Massachusettes, The MIT Press, 2002, p. 3. Available from: JStor, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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flui d model 01

MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI Century, Rome by zaha hadid architects

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The Container: Physical Elements of Flow Standing beneath the cantilevered mass outside MAXXI and in the internal main atrium wrapped around by flights of ribbon-like stairs closely matched the expectation of ‘spectacle’ raised in the series of images presented by mass media. This piece of architecture that felt heavy but at the same time dances lightly, gave great first impression; it is a spectacle that stands out in the neighbourhood.

Due to its location away from the touristic old Rome City, a spectacle is indeed needed to make the visitors feel the worth of venturing out of central Rome. ZHA is an apt candidate. ZHA’s designs are often featured and discussed by the architectural media. It is an architectural firm that has the potential to generate a ‘Bilbao Effect’ with its signature ‘otherness’ that characterizes their complex design.

From the outside, the building looks like two to four separate continuous volumes converged and diverged, intercepted and stacked to form a distinctive three-dimensional composition. During interviews, Hadid used the terms such as ‘flow’, ‘joint’ and ‘layering’ to explain the concept of the complex massing. She explained that the massing had to deal with geological and archaeological mapping. It is a trajectory of the urban context to reconnect two portions of the Flaminia neighbourhood. Flaminia neighbourhood has important urban value due to important landmarks and natural landscape that dotted the existing map.1 (Fig. 19)

Recollecting the impression from my case study visit, the MAXXI enclosure has created routes that flow around it. In particular, the courtyard conjoins north and south of the neighbourhood. The courtyard is frequently used by the public as an agglomeration point and a shortcut access route across north to south (Fig. 20).

1

ZHA(Trans. V. Porfirio, Z. Poh), MAXXI Stage A Report, Fondazione MAXXI Archive, Rome, 2000.

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Fencing complex in Foro Italico by Luigi Monetti.

Tevere River (River of Rome)

Villa Glori Park al Palazzetto dello Sport by Pier Luigi Nervi

MAXXI

Auditorium by Renzo Piano

Stadio Flaminio by Pier Luigi Nervi

Fig. 19: MAXXI site context. (source: google map.)

(Previous pages:) p. 29. Fig. 15: MAXXI Atrium p. 30. Fig. 16: MAXXI from North Entrance p. 31. Fig. 17: MAXXI Gallery 02. p. 32. Fig. 18: MAXXI from Courtyard.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

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Fig. 20: Aerial View of MAXXI and Flaminia neighbourhood, Rome

cch uri int eP via l

Reni uido via G viale del V ig

uido

via G

Reni

North Flaminia

nia

lami via F

io

(Source: http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html )

B

nola

A

Fig. 21: Site Context Strategy Diagrams.

A_ MAXXI main building B_ Public courtyard which connects north and south Flaminia neighbourhood C_ Restored section

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South Flaminia

C

Fig. 22: Linearity in gallery spaces.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

36

Internally, architectural elements such as walls, beams, ribs, stairs and ramps are used to emphasise on linearity (Fig. 22). They are meant to ‘accentuate’ directionality of the gallery of space and give a psychological impact that channels the flow of visitors across the exhibition space, as described in The Meaning of MAXXI by Schumacher: Between the walls arrays of ribs participate in the overall laminar flow of lines and thus further accentuate the directionality of the gallery spaces. These ribs structure the glass roofs that filter natural light into all gallery spaces. A continuum of correlated architectural elements is established: walls, beams, and ribs. Everything joins the formalism of linear, streaming elements. This also involves the ramps and staircases and thus ultimately the circulatory flow of the audience. Everything flows.2

In some of the galleries, the presence of temporarily added-on partitions where exhibits are displayed, however, rejected the intention of walls being circulatory channeling elements. The ‘container’ needed extra structures to support the fundamental function of an art gallery - to organize, order and facilitate activities. Even without curvy wall and field-like beams, the art gallery could function as well.

It is a conventional practice to have temporary architectural features in gallery spaces as art with different sizes and media would require varying care and requirements so that the artworks are best experienced. However, ZHA’s claim on the roles of architectural elements as their strategy to organize visitors’ movement in this gallery space is contrived.

2 P. Schumacher, ‘The Meaning of MAXXI – Concepts, Ambitions, Achievements’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, Urban Strategy and Architectural Concept, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

37

I was particularly curious to see if the movements of the users correlate to the container and the architectural elements of the building as ZHA aspired. A series of mapping exercises were carried out. These mapping exercise involve time-lapse filming as a method to capture and produce a spatial syntax via mapping the movement of users in the spaces.

Mapping 01 was carried out in Gallery 01 and Mapping 02 was carried out in the atrium space near the entrance.

(Fig. 23) Mapping 01: To observe how the users navigate in the gallery space, in accordance to the partitions, the exhibits or the linearity of the walls, beams, and ribs over head.

Mapping 02: To observe how the users move in the atrium space, where curved walls and organic furnitures are present. The atrium space has multiple access connecting entrance to the courtyard, galleries, and the featured stairs.

Fig. 23: Set-up of mapping exercises.

Mapping 01 Location: Gallery 01 No. of subjects involved: 1 Duration of time-lapse: 0:1:00

Mapping 02 Location: Gallery 01 No. of subjects analysed: 3 scenarios Duration of time-lapse: 0:3:45

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Fig. 24: Stills from timelapse filming, featuring the subject in black shirt (highlighted in orange in the first image) who was looking at the exhibit.

39

3

1 2

Fig. 25: The subject involved in Mapping 01 drifted front and back, closer and further from the exhibits. There was almost no attention paid to the architectural elements including the partitions.

40

Mapping 01 (Fig. 25) showed that users gave most attentions to the exhibits as that was clearly the objectives of their visits. They drifted front and back, closer and further from the exhibits. They moved from one exhibit to another; and paused according to their interests. There was almost no attention paid to the streaming architectural elements; not even the partitions. In this gallery, the presence of the streaming architectural elements were not very obvious as a large number of temporary partitions were present.

Mapping 02 (Fig. 26) revealed that visitors deliberately maneuvered across the atrium en route to galleries or other destinations. This can be shown by the rather straight routes being taken in a rather constant speed, instead of curved or repeated drifts comparable to arbitrary strolls. The movement does not change tangentially according to the curved walls and organic reception desks. In fact, in a functional space, most inhabitants walked in straight or took the shortest displacement to their destinations. The role of curved walls here does not channel the flow of the users; multiple accesses, instead, liberated visitors’ movement.

The curved wall, however, might have contributed to the visual aesthetic of the atrium and in heightening the spectacularity of the space. The impression of smoothness generated might have complemented the ribbon-like stairs in creating a coherent architectural language of ‘fluidity’ and ‘lightness’.

As envisioned by the architects, the stairs in the atrium were observed to have led the flow of users both vertically and horizontally from the front part of the building. The stairs have provided main access, alongside with lifts, and connected one gallery to another. The ramp that leads up to the galleries that sits on the highest storey, is also the only route of access (except emergency fire exits). It is the gallery that cantilevers out into the courtyard.

41

Subject 01 3

1 2

Subject 02

Fig. 26: Mapping 02 involves 3 subjects or scenarios. Visitors deliberately maneuvered across the atrium en route to galleries or other destinations.

The movement does not change tangentially according to the curved walls and organic reception desks.

In fact, in a functional space, most inhabitants walked in straight or took the shortest displacement to their destinations.

Subject 03

42

43

Fig. 26: Superimposition of stills from time-lapse filming.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

The ramp leads visitors to the end of the gallery where a panoramic view of the Flaminia neighbourhood is framed with a huge glazing(Fig. 27). Just as how the architects explained in the Meaning of MAXXI, this move justifies their conceptual idea of streaming ‘field’ that is projected into its urban context.

‘The flow, bifurcation and confluence of architectural elements affiliates to the multiple trajectories of the urban context and embraces the existing buildings on the site that are incorporated into the new institution.’3 In this way, the architects have attempted to curate a subliminal experience that corresponds the building to its context in a conceptual sense.

The architecture seems to organise flow in a top-down manner, visitors’ movement across the building is prescribed by stairs and ramp elements. As if they were visiting someone else’s house, it could restrict the pleasure of wandering about freely. More importantly, it could restrict users from browsing gallery in their own agency, choice, and wish. The ramp presets the sequence of the visit and makes it difficult for the audience to return to certain galleries of their choice. Oddly, the prescriptive visual experience goes against acknowledging of an open-ended essence of art by the architects which can be found in Meaning of MAXXI: ‘Art’ today is an open-ended platform to reflect new social phenomena and ideas... A pertinent brief for an art centre is thus rather abstract, open-ended, and essentially paradoxical: calling for an anti-institutional institution. It is a vacant field defined only negatively as the refusal to perpetuate the status quo and as a demonstration that things might be otherwise. There can be no strict typology as there is no positively specified content. ‘Art’ is subject to the open-ended series of re-interpretations of the very concept of art by each new generation of artists.4

If the design of the architecture is intended to complement, if not advance, the philosophy and the very essence of twenty first century ‘art’ as an open-ended social platform as described above, the building should not have just curated a uniform way of accessing the artwork. It should have provided an open-ended, if not at least multiple routes, to the contents. The architects might have overcome the mundane way of displaying the art; the bends and the journey along the stairs have created an exciting architectural experience, just as the architects have aspired. Notwithstanding, it has unconsciously restricted visitors’ agency of accessing the primary subject of the building. The channeling of flow is arguably a step backward instead of suggesting a socially progressive stride within the particular architecture typology.

3 P. Schumacher, ‘The Meaning of MAXXI – Concepts, Ambitions, Achievements’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, The Art Museum as Catalyst, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

4 Ibid.

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Fig. 27: Panoramic view of the Flaminia Neighbourhood in cantilevering gallery.

47

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

The Contained: Complexity and Fluid Diagram

MAXXI is not a particularly intuitive building to navigate. The stacking and crisscrossing of the masses resulted in an internally complex spatiality. Narrow corridors and small spaces would be intersected by voluminous halls of irregular shapes. The spaces appear to dissolve and reform, converge and intercept; forming chains of complex flowing spaces. ZHA often described their designs like this as ‘ordered complexity’5.

The variation in scales of these volumes have resulted in varying floor levels. A flight of stairs throughout the building could have distinctive number of steps. In-between levels or mezzanine spaces further complicate visitors’ comprehension in navigating vertically through the building. A staff I had encountered expressed her struggle in pointing out directions to the visitors. There is no definitive understanding of floor levels.

The variation of flowing spaces have curated a unique architectural experience of being dynamic and unpredictable. It creates an immersive experience that keeps visitors alert for what is coming: a strategy that is potentially advantageous for museum designs. Bergström, in the book, has claimed that this assorted arrangement of volumes and shapes may have positive effects on one’s experience of the building because one’s muscles are predisposed to constantly changing workload and rhythm - the body tends to avoid monotonic movements. 6

But for some people, this could be unpleasant and erratic. Routes that link these spaces create unexpected turns and bends. To harmonize these turns and bends, they are often in curved surfaces, in contrary to sharp or angular corners. However, the curvaceous nature is not helpful in providing definite visual clues and points of references for the purpose of orientation. This becomes especially challenging when visitors’ attention is not given solely to navigating within the building but also on browsing the artworks. Discovery of new spaces with unconventional flow and erratic architectural elements may eventually become a distracting and exhausting undertaking.

5 P. Schumacher, ‘On Parametricism’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2012, point 2, ‘http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/On%20Parametricism%20-%20A%20Dialogue%20between%20Neil%20Leach%20and%20Patrik%20Schumacher.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

6 M.Simonsson, ‘Displaying Spaces’, Research Dissertation, Umeå University, 2014, p. 148. Avaiblable from: Umeå University Portal, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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The primary programmatic function of MAXXI is to house and showcase contemporary art. This, however, is relegated by the distractive nature of the architecture due to its spatial complexity. One could critically question which was the priority: the building (the container) or the art (the contained)? Would the question, then, present a false dichotomy?

The complexity found in MAXXI and many of ZHA’s works is often explained to be the response and solution for complicated requirements. They have claimed that it is not their primary concerns to produce formal innovations or spatial complexity. Schumacher defended their radical design with an underlying progressive rationality: it represents the potential to engage with the complexities and uncertainties of emerging post-fordist social arrangements.7

A further understanding of the requirement by the client is mandatory to enable a critical evaluation of their claims. The brief in the early stage report for MAXXI sourced from the archive outlined the multi-program requirement: ‘In particular, the centre will be characterised by the presence of two museum centres: the XXI century museum and museum of the architecture that will have in common several innovative elements of structure: spaces for temporary exhibition and spaces for education, live events production, experimentation, and commercial activities.’8

It is not uncommon for a museum to have co-existing temporary and permanent exhibition spaces, multi-purpose halls for workshops and events, and commercial activities. These functions do not dictate specialised characteristics nor overlapping of spaces, as approached by other museum precedents. The complexity was not tasked by the clients, nor enforced as pre-requisites to be accomplished by the architects. It was the architects’ intention to have a diagrammatic resolution that employed flowing ‘fields’ and intersecting spaces. Though it is an unconventional response for a typical museum brief, it is, however, not accidental or arbitrary. The diagram of ‘fields’ was used in the BMW Central Building in Leipzig.9 The conceptual vector diagrams that outlined flowing ‘fields’ of MAXXI and BMW Central building have striking visual resemblances despite the difference in typologies (Fig. 21).

7 P. Schumacher, ‘In Defence of Radicalism’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2000, conclusion, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/ Radicalism.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

8 ZHA(Trans. V. Porfirio, Z. Poh), MAXXI Stage A Report, Fondazione MAXXI Archive, Rome, 2000.

9 D. Spencer, Replicant urbanism: the architecture of Hadid’s Central Building at BMW, Leipzig,The Journal of Architecture, 2010, p. 12.

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Fig. 28: Conceptual vector diagrams: MAXXI, Rome, 2009 and BMW Central Building, Leipzig by ZHA, 2005.

(Source: USC.edu, The Journal of Architecture 15:2, 2010)

50

The organization of the BMW Central Building exemplified the post-fordist social relation where workforce is encouraged to have exchange of ideas and knowledge10. Similar to the MAXXI, flowing fields run across the building, converging and intersecting. These fields are the production lines. They begin at the production plants, run pass the audit area into atrium spaces. The unusual clashes of the industrial production lines and the workforce of different administrative hierarchies are meant to dissolve top-down social relation in an industrial setting and instigate collective participation. The industrial building is re-packaged as a ‘market place’ for information. 11

The diagram of fluid fields supports societal function in the BMW Central Building. It transcends workforce’s individual opinions in the production processes. Empowerment of subjectivity would have a different meaning and take on a different form in a museum or art gallery typology. It would mean making art accessible to the public.

The conceptual massing that intends to embed the building within the neighbourhood with ‘flow’, ‘joint’ and ‘layering’, as discussed in previous chapter, has a societal function. It is, though, limited by practical causes. One of the examples being that the building has to close at night for security purposes. The courtyard, on this note, seems to be doing a better job by being physically accessible. Through the conversations I had with the visitors during my visit, the courtyard was enjoyed by the local families on a regular basis. The building, on the other hand, function as a separate entity detached from the courtyard. This may look contrary to what is explained in the Meaning of MAXXI, where Schumacher discussed the concept, ambitions, and achievement of the MAXXI. The project’s unity and coherence are thus constituted internally as a field rather than externally as an object. The building turns the corner and partly embeds itself into the context. It has no overall shape that can be visually grasped in a single glance. Instead, it opens a characteristic ‘world’ to dive into (rather than a building that confronts you as signature object).12

10 n.a. Realisierungswettbewerb BMW Werk Leipzig – Zentralgebaude, (translated for the author by Frank Elliot). 2001, cited in D. Spencer, The Architecture of Neoliberalism, p. 84.

11 D. Spencer, The Architecture of Neoliberalism, Chennai, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2016, p. 84.

12 P. Schumacher, ‘The Meaning of MAXXI – Concepts, Ambitions, Achievements’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, Field Versus Object, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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The use of heavy materials and overwhelming scale has alienated the building from its surrounding. There is hardly any attempt in making the contained- the art, accessible. The closest gallery to the courtyard and community outside was through the panoramic glazing from the gallery cantilevering above the pedestrian level.

Ironically, it only allows peering out, a one-sided act, by a filtered community that has already had access to the art. The fluid diagram should encourage more physical crossover with the public, rather than an extension of the neighbourhood at a conceptual level or streaming architectural elements.

The rationale of convergence and dispersion of ‘flowing force fields’ in BMW Central Building could not be directly transferred to MAXXI. The flowing of fields originated from the internal design of the BMW Central Building according to the client’s ambition and brief. Whereas in MAXXI, the adoption of flowing fields is not justified upon a closer analysis of its internal organisation. Nonetheless, flowing fields seem to manifest better on the external level. These fields extend, connect and site the building within its context. Notwithstanding, it creates an organisation of complex flowing spaces that is contentious when considering its programmatic and societal functions.

Aesthetic and Societal Function: Architectural Representation and Fluid Totality ZHA’s societal claims have always been associated to their fluid agendas, namely Fluid Totality and The Autopoiesis of Architecture, theorised by one of the partners in ZHA, Schumacher. The absence of a strong societal function behind MAXXI is an irony to these agendas. It would render the agendas to appear as nothing more than a stylistic commitment to achieve a consistency in the architectural language of fluidity and complexity.

Both ‘fluidity’ and ‘complexity’ have been Hadid’s disposition since earlier days in her career when she was in the AA. She had shown dominant pre-occupation in architectural representation. She was influenced by art movement namely Russian Suprematism and Constructivism; in which fragmented elements such as prows, shards and blocks were used to suggest an architectural narrative rather than to define functions and spaces. 13 She had combined multiple perspective into a single drawing that suggested motions and gestures. ‘The whole building is a frozen motion,’ Hadid remarked of her first signature building, the Vitra Fire Station, ‘ready to explode into action at any moment’.14 Even in MAXXI, the concept of ‘flowing fields’ exemplified this quality of frozen volumes in motion. She has called for a ‘new image of architectural presence’ with ‘dynamic qualities such as speed, intensity, power, and direction before she was joined by Schumacher and associated with social claims.

13 14

H. Foster, ‘New Fields of Architecture’, Artforum international, New York: Artforum Inc., 2006, Ibid.

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The disparate volumes of her designs became more fluid with the advent of computer-aided design. Computer software has enabled a much larger formal capability and complexity. Curvilinear and curvaceous forms became their handy tools to give unity and coherence. They lustre over the edgy volumes to create smoother transition of bends and turns. ‘In the edgy style where corners proliferate, and unities or continuities fall apart, complex functional unities and relations can no longer be perceived.’ Schumacher further described the importance of curvilinear: ‘If the edgy style wants to become more complex, it becomes a disarticulated, disorienting visual chaos, where no identities and functional continuities can be recognized.’ He urged the visitors to imagine projects like MAXXI and BMW without curves, ‘it will be disorienting’15 he claimed.

On the other hand, ZHA is also inspired by natural systems, topographies and fluid dynamic systems, as they gave aesthetically coherent quality without compromising on richness and variation. ‘The central planning is dead,’ as Schumacher claimed, ‘a bottom up built environment was required.’16 The richness and variation is ideal as they leave room for active interpretation on the part of inhabitants in congenial with the contemporary liquid social relation. In Fluid Totality, Schumacher described a ‘nature-like environment’ that is highly proliferated or differentiated via parametric tools.17 This differentiated landscape would ‘self-generate’ by correlation logic, in the same way as how the topography correlates with the path of river. The inhabitants would ‘self-organise’ and subliminally navigate around this coded landscape; Schumacher called this an ‘animal-like navigation’:

Humans should be able to navigate cities and home in on the vital, life enhancing social resources on offer, with the same assuredness that characterizes animal navigation, with the same kind of sublimi nal cognitive processing, i.e. in a ‘state of distraction’ rather than via an effortful deciphering of sig nage or maps..’ 18

15 P. Schumacher, ‘On Dogmas, Styles, Progress, History and Ecology’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2012, http://www.patrikschumacher. com/Texts/On%20Dogmas_Styles_Progress_History%20and%20Ecology.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

16 Institute of Architecture, Z.Hadid and P. Schumacher, Fluid Totality: Studio Zaha Hadid 2000-2015. University of Applied Arts Vienna, Basel, Birkhauser, 2015..

17 P. Schumacher, ‘Fluid Totality’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2015, Two Related Analogies, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/ Fluid_Totality.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

18 Ibid, Two Related Analogies.

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Climbing Over

Sliding down sideway

Crawling up

Fig. 29: Stills from time-lapse video of the MAXXI courtyard. Children were observed to creatively interacting with the differentiated landscape.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.) 54

For Schumacher, the existing linguistically-driven system has caused an incoherent cityscape which is visually chaotic19. However, he appeared to have disregarded the existing accumulated learned knowledge such as semiotic understanding of the surrounding environment that is entrenched in our cultures. Humans are assumed to adapt to the rule-based landscape. Unlike children who are less pre-conditioned, adults constantly make cognitive judgment based on their experience when they orientate themselves through a space, especially in a functional place. The mapping exercise employed in MAXXI revealed this intrinsic pattern, where visitors maneuvered due to respective purposes, instead of responding intuitively with the curved and streaming physical elements.

The set-up of partitions and other temporary structure reflected their spatial agency. They improvise and build on existing external environment; they do not simply adapt and conform. The differentiations such as the landscape furniture found in the courtyard gave a clue of what highly differentiated landscape could be. Children who are less pre-conditioned with semiotic understanding and are more curious with the environment could find multiple and creative ways to use the curved forms that emerged from the ground for their play(Fig. 29).

They would ingeniously re-appropriate the landscape furniture for their cycle stunts or contrive games; but adults derived little use from it simply because the scale is off to have any functional use.

It is possible for ZHA to create environments that have variegations and coherence without monotony by adopting natural systems as their inspiration and parametricism as their tools. However, they cannot dictate how human beings navigate these environments. It is imperative for curved forms and differentiations to be justified by conscious rationale to be applicable in architectural design in order to contribute to societal functioning. Otherwise, the reference to nature in the fluid agenda would appear to be mimicry in mere aesthetic term.

19 P. Schumacher, ‘Fluid Totality’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2015, Bottom Up Urban Order, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/ Fluid_Totality.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

55

56

(Opposite) Fig. 30: (Top) Children using linear pavings as racing tracks in MAXXI Courtyard.

(Bottom all) Differentiated landscapes/ furniture for different uses.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

Fig. 31: Temporary structures in MAXXI reflecting spatial agency: Play structures in the courtyard (above), partitions to hold exhibitions (right).

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

57

58

02_

fluid model 02

EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne

by SANAA

60

61

62

The Container: The Retreat of Physical Elements I first approached the building from the street to a flat elevation that was cut by a curved floor plane. There are no distinction between front and back in this building despite its orthogonal edge conditions. Visitors would weave beneath functional part of the building that spanned across the borders of the site and wandered into the circular courtyards where the main entrance sits in the largest courtyard in the middle of the plan. The entrance is placed in the centre of the plan which makes it equally accessible from all direction. This also means that the entrance is almost equidistant from each function on the inside.

The brief called for a new main library to accommodate 500,000 people, with four large open study areas for 900 students, office space, a conference amphitheater, as well as an online multimedia library, restaurants, cafés and outdoor spaces, and spaces for cultural events.1 ‘The Rolex Learning Center,’ As stated by Patrick Aebischer, President of EPFL, ‘exemplifies our university as a place where traditional boundaries between disciplines are broken down, where mathematicians and engineers meet with neuroscientists and microtechnicians to envision new technologies that improve lives. We invite the public into this space to convey the message that working in science is working for the advancement of society.’2

1 D. Saunt, ‘Sanaa’s Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne ‘, Bdonline.co.uk, [website], 2010, para. 16, http://www.bdonline.co.uk/sanaa%E2%80%99s-rolex-learning-centre-in-lausanne/3159252.article, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

2 Ibid.

63

The Rolex Learning Centre primarily works as a ‘continuous fluid space’ that has several cellular courtyards that allow light and views. (Fig. 63) In this very big room, as Nishizawa, one of the partners of SANAA says, they wanted to blend the uses so that ‘any programme can meet anywhere’.3

The idea of ‘a continuous space’ echoes the modernist identity of ‘open plan‘ (Frank Lloyd Wright) or continuity of space (Mies van der Rohe), which assumed that architecture at its best does not divide space utterly, but rather, allows space to flow among different abstract compositions of volumes and planes.4 The diagram of a large uninterrupted volume also resembles the architecture of fordism where mass production was carried out. Large spaces are required to house machines, workforce, and industrial processes.

In today’s context where micro-economy replaces economy of scale, this undifferentiated large spaces that catered for fordist industrial activities might no longer be relevant. Large spaces like this would appear to have too little physical clues for human to inhabit and adapt. ‘Imagine that the people who live and work in a metropolis like London are stranded on a vast, undifferentiated plane, stripped of their clothes and their designed and built environment.’5 Schumacher used the analogy of being stranded in the wilderness to illustrate society’s dependency on architecture to order and provide structure for social relation. He claimed that ‘Nobody would even know who he or she was anymore, let alone how, with whom, and where to interact.’6

Similarly, SANAA too believes in architecture’s role in ordering societal functions, particularly as an agent to instigate communication between inhabitants, as discussed previously (Refer to Chapter: Social Responsibility).

3 D. Saunt, ‘Sanaa’s Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne ‘, Bdonline.co.uk, [website], 2010, para. 9, http://www.bdonline.co.uk/sanaa%E2%80%99s-rolex-learning-centre-in-lausanne/3159252.article, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

4 Daanico, ‘5 Points of Modern Architecture’, Daanico Architecture, [website], 2010, point. 4, https://daanico.wordpress. com/2013/12/23/5-points-of-modern-architecture/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

5 P. Schumacher, ‘Design is Communication’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2015, para. 2, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/Design%20is%20Communication.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

6 Ibid, para. 2.

64

Views 10m

9

The style ofPlan, the plan Fig.graphical 63: Floor

11

presents the building with the EPFL Rolex Learning

8

appearance of a landscape, Centre, Lausanne by

6

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4

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1

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2

areas around the perimeter from

10

intrusion. The brief requirements are gradated from the bottom to

7

the top (towards the campus) with

3 12

private working areas separated 10m

by the internal hills, and external courtyards from the public areas.

Top, Primary floor plan

s The Learning

(Previous pages:) Bottom, Undercroft and external p. 59. Fig. 32: Exterior of the learning centre landscaping plan. p. 60. Fig. 33: Exterior. p. 62. Fig. 34: Entrance.1. Main entrance

graphs by James Kirk

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

row in the Landscape

65

2. Cafe 3. Food court 4. Bank

Fig. 64 & 65: The undulated floor planes.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

66

However, the spaces envisioned by SANAA is unlike fordist’s and modernist’s open-plan models. Exemplified by EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, the diagram closely resembles a park or a topographical landscape. ‘We somehow imagined a park – a space where people can communicate,’7 said Sejima. This landscape consists of small hills, valleys and plateaus; each has different physical characteristics and spatial qualities.

This wall-less landscape was created using undulation of floor plane.

The tilting of floor planes is also employed as a strategy to consciously and subtly divide spaces into smaller zones.

The division is not done by conventional physical dividers such as walls, partitions or column. It is a gradual sectional division caused by the gradual changes of relative floor level. Whilst the zoning is made, visual connectivity between two spaces is maintained. This engenders a false sense of illusion in the inhabitants into experiencing the space as a whole; as if they have equal agency to access all zones from all directions from almost every point in the building.

7 D. Saunt, ‘Sanaa’s Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne‘, Bdonline.co.uk, [website], 2010, para. 9, http://www.bdonline.co.uk/sanaa%E2%80%99s-rolex-learning-centre-in-lausanne/3159252.article, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

Fig. 66 & 67: Plateaus for furniture 67

Again, mapping exercise (Mapping 03) was performed, in which movements of inhabitants were recorded via time-lapse filming(Fig. 68). The time-lapse video was taken in a slack space in front of the cafe. The slack space has multiple access: the building entrance, studying space and cafe. It is worth noting that the floor plane was sloping up towards the studying space. The mapping analysis highlighted the movements of three subjects (Fig. 69 & Fig. 70). Persons A and B were walking towards the studying space; person C was walking out of the studying space, towards the cafe/entrance.

Among the three of them, all the routes they took are curved, despite having somewhat clearer destinations.

It was interesting to observe the outcome and reflecting it with a comment made by SANAA regarding the idea behind the undulating floor plane that resembles hills and valleys: ‘Human movements are not linear like the way a train travels, but curve in a more organic way.’8

There could have been a relation between inclination and human movements. The curved movement might have been resulted naturally from walking up the inclined surface. But there could have been influenced by other reasons such as the proximity of other users: people tend to keep a distance between strangers. Person C might be walking away from persons A & B. Even though their routes are slightly curved, they might not be enough to steer visitors towards interceptions that would result in interactions.

The inclination of floor planes alongside the non-prescriptive organisation of spaces might have increased the probability of curved movement therefore possibilities of relational activities; as described by SANAA: ‘With straight lines we can only create crossroads, but with curves we can create more diverse interactions.’9 However, it is up to inhabitants’ intention for interactions to happen even though their paths intercept. Architecture alone would not directly determine if relational activities would take place.

8 R. Nishizawa, ARTE Architectures Le Rolex Learning Center EPFL, [online video], 2014, Available at: http://rolexlearningcenter.epfl.ch/page117799-en.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

9 Ibid.

68

Figure 68: Mapping 03 Stills from time-lapse filming.

10m

9

The graphical style of th

11

presents the building w

8

appearance of a landsc

6

with paths, amphitheat 6

and pavilions. The realit

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5

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4

Mapping 03

areas of the building, in

9

lower edge and left side

1

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Location: Slack Space

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2

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10

No. of subjects involved: 3

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3

Duration of time-lapse: 0:1:00

12

private working areas s 10m

by the internal hills, and

courtyards from the pub

69

Top, Primary floor plan

Bottom, Undercroft and landscaping plan.

Fig. 69: Superimposition of stills from time-lapse filming.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

70

71

C

B A

Fig. 70: Diagrammatic perspective outlining movement recorded by the time-lapse filming in relation to the sloped floor plane.

72

Studying Space

C

Entrance

1

A B

2

Cafe

Fig. 71: Plan diagram showing movement, path recorded and access of spaces in proximity.

10

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Neither the educational typology nor the client’s brief and ambition require qualities of grandeur.

The floor to ceiling height in various parts of the building has a uniform height of 3.5m, including the reception area. There is very little physical clues that differentiated the reception from the rest of the building, except that it has been located near the entrance on the ground level. It was more frequently accessed, thus busier and noisier. People aggregate and interact briefly before they part for respective activities. As the floor plane slopes up, the atmosphere calms down and give more sense of privacy. People tend to linger longer and have more solitary and sedentary activities within these spaces.

Light wells and cellular rooms that punctured across the open plan are in cylindrical forms. The cylindrical form makes it equally accessible from all directions as there is no distinction between front and back. They allow for similar illumination conditions at various points in the building. Comparing this to a modernist tower block model with a core and curtain wall system, each inhabitant has a more equal relation with the exterior(Fig. 72). They create non-hierarchical and democratic space, or in SANAA’s own words, the ‘equivalence of spaces’10.

Fig. 72: Modernist tower block typology (left) and EPFL Learning Centre (right). The latter manifests ‘equivalence of spaces’: non-hierarchical and democratic space in terms of more equal relation with the exterior.

10 The Pritzker Architecture Prize, [website], 2010, http:// www.pritzkerprize.com/2010/jury, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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Fig. 73: Cylindrical glazed courtyard interior (left) and exterior view (right).

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

75

The lightness and transparency due to the use of glazing alongside with the muted colour palette of the concrete floor and roof planes could be seen as elitist and rarefied(Fig. 73). However, the architect claimed that their approach has been unattached to an aesthetic medium. According to SANAA, the function of the glazing has been to achieve openness and permeability towards the outside space, thus inviting participants for relational opportunities, as described by ‘One often mentions the permeable nature of SANAA’s facades… They are transparent to seduce people to enter. The more participants, the more fun the game yields.’11 They also helped in orientation across the unusual floor plan.

Even the signage, which could cause unnecessary clutter, has gone through exceptional effort to be made discreet. Glazing and cylindrical surfaces of the internal spaces has been directly written on for way-finding purposes. The ceiling has been left untouched as up-lighters are fixed to mullions. Fire escape signage have been positioned on the ground; with the only exceptions of smoke detectors and yellow ribbed rubber for the visually impaired being visible elements of fire regulation(Fig. 74).

The architects hold the vision of a building as a seamless whole, where the physical presence recedes to form a sensuous background for people, objects, activities, and landscapes. Properties of continuous space, lightness, transparency, and materiality were explored to create a subtle synthesis. Undulation of the floor, cylindrical form of the walls, and the transparency and lightness of the built materials are strategies and tools to frame the social relations within. These do not dictate activities contained as hierarchical conditions are stripped down. Instead, it wants to be a regressive sheltered landscape that invites participants from different faculties, public, and students for relational opportunities to happen.

11 F. Idenburg(ed.), ‘Relations’, The SANAA Studios 2006 - 2008. Learning From Japan: Single Story Urbanism ed., Baden: Lars Muller Publishers, 2010, p. 74.

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Fig. 74: Cylindrical glazed courtyard interior (left) and exterior view (right).

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

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The Contained: The Relationalist and Cultural Implication Conventional prototypes of human relationships, such as ‘happy families’ and ‘individual private spaces,’ have begun to fall apart. SANAA questions the typical human relations upon which modern architectural formulas are based upon. They were interested in the linkage between deconstruction in relationship and de-territolisation in architecture. Hasegawa drew similarity of this idea of ‘the whole’ and Shinto, a Japanese belief: ‘Everything in this universe contains another small universe within it, and all the universes are equal. Her (Sejima’s) approach has a lot in common with holographic paradigms and a Shinto-like world view: the part is a whole and the whole is a part.’12 Saishunkan Seiyaku Women’s Dormitory is one of the earliest project that embodied this exploration; whereby the conventional idea of borders between private and public domain were critically deconstructed.13

SANAA turned to more abstract ways of deconstruction; one that does not use physical means to divide and organise space. They wanted to avoid the creation of harsh confrontation that would result in segregation amongst the social groups. SANAA was interested in ephemeral subjects, such as an event, to de-construct institutional hierarchy and transcend spatial territories. This notion could be rather alien in the West where spaces are formed and organized by physical elements. ‘Space, in the Western architectural tradition, was bounded and contained, limited by walls, floors and ceilings.’14 However, there are other cultures who do not build to make sense of their environments. ‘They tend to group their activities around some central focus- a water, hole, a shade tree, a fire, a great teacher,’15 Banham argued that such societies enjoy inhabiting spaces ‘whose external boundaries are vague, adjustable according to functional need, and rarely regular.’16

In 2002, Sejima, along with her students, tested an architectural installation on a field outside Tokyo. The project consisted of a grid of around 100 barbecues separated by approximately 12 m on a grid formation. Each offered a single type of either meat or vegetable, with some points on the grid offering drinks. The residents in the neighbourhoods adjacent to the field were then invited to wander among the barbecues, encountering their neighbours along the way and facilitating interactions between the residents. ‘The party looks disconnected, but people share the coming dusk together.’17

12 13 14 15 16 17

Y. Hasegawa(ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012, p. 24.

Ibid, p. 12.

R. Benham, The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, 2nd Edn, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, p. 19.

Ibid, p. 20.

Ibid, p. 20.

R. Koolhaas, Junkspace, Massachusettes, The MIT Press, 2002, p. 3. Available from: JStor, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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Fig. 75: Field Experiment on ‘Relational’ idea: Set-up (top) and process (bottom).

(Source: Flickr, User Packing Light.)

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Fig. 76: More temporary elements were opted for many zones (Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

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The Rolex Learning Centre, in some ways, have similar organizational strategy and social aspiration. More temporary elements were opted for many zones. For example, bean bags replaced conventional fixed furniture to allow subjects, objects, activities, and programs to be in flux(Fig. 76). The barbecue pits from the field experiments are analogous to the ephemeral elements within the learning centre, such as furniture or groups of people, where spontaneous process of engagement amongst users occurred. Individuals have the agency to choose where they want to be and what furniture they need for different activities. SANAA described this agent and situation-based organisation to be a loose-script crafted for human interrelationship: The architectural plan is, in fact, an organizational tool. Not merely in its conventional way, as spatial organizer of the program, but as a carefully crafted script for human interrelationships. It’s a loose script, one that includes multiple and open-ended scenarios. The user/actor is offered a free range of options and trajectories, passing through realms of varying degrees of activation.18

Some ascribed SANAA’s work to Relational Aesthetic; of which the group of artists have gained recognition in the early 1990s. They sought for creative experimental production of new social bonds through ephemeral means: ‘The ideas of diversity, potentiality, fluidity and simultaneity inform the work [...] which opens itself onto the world, eschewing introspective critique in favor of engagement, activation, entertainment and seductions.’19 The aesthetic that this group of artists aspired to achieve lies in the instigation of encounters and social bonds rather than visual aesthetics.

Although SANAA claimed that they do not draw inspiration from traditional Japanese architecture20, the entrenched city structure and social conditions in Japan may have indirectly casted a set of values that have had implications on their work: relationalist and architectural language of ephemerality. Japanese cities have been subjected to frequent destruction throughout history: events of war, by earthquake, fire, not forgetting political and economic upheaval. The most recent force to affect the makeup of the Japanese city has been a decade or so, due to the speculative financial bubble which has caused significant disruption to the construction industry, and consequently the Japanese architectural profession.21 18 ‘ “Relations” The SANAA Studios 2006–2008: Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism’, SO-IL, 2009, Para. 6, http://so-il.org/writing/relations/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

19 ‘ “Relations” The SANAA Studios 2006–2008: Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism’, SO-IL, 2009, Para. 8, http://so-il.org/writing/relations/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

20 J. Glancey, ‘SANAA’s summer pavilion brings sunshine to the Serpentine’, the Guardian, [webpage], 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2009/jul/08/sanaa-summer-pavilion-serpentine, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

21 I. Angelidou, ‘Inhabited Natures’, San Rocco #2 Summer 2011, The Even Covering Of The Field, 2011, pp. 90-103.

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While in the West cities and their street have a design and the context has precise points of reference, cities like Tokyo appear to be undifferentiated systems with neutral and ever changing urban characteristics, which could be extended endlessly in any direction […] so that the image of the city is always being modified without ever changing its basic concept: a neutral and fragmentary system, lacking precise points of reference except systems of transport and communication.22

The increasingly liquid contemporary social relation that are more intangible, transient and mobile resembles the traditional Japanese social and urban makeup; of which may have contributed to SANAA’s relational interest.

In an interview from 2010, Kengo Kuma related relational interest with cultural implication: ‘Western architecture is about shape and form and Asian architecture is about relationships’.23 This idea that relationships may transcend the importance of shape and form in Japanese architecture demands that the observer uses different tools to analyse and critique the evidence.

Qualities associated with Japanese such as ephemerality and fragmentation due to contextual influence, may have been influential to SANAA’s architectural language. Even though, SANAA did not claim to achieve this for aesthetic purposes. Instead, they have used a palette that recedes and is retrained, so that the container gives full agency to its contained; the user/actor is offered a free range of options and trajectories, passing through realms of varied degrees of activation. They are the creators of the space, not the architects; who would reveal building’s program over time. The potential of the space, just like human behavior, would have unpredictable and unlimited possibilities.

Aesthetic and Societal Function: Physical Reality over Ideology SANAA found the need to respond to the digitisation of things and to accommodate for the change in social relation in the liquid modernity. They were particularly afraid of the world becoming virtual, frictionless and transitory. Architecture used to be the carrier of memory and values, whilst the virtual shift delaminates ‘value’ from the physical world.

Allowing this value to flow and mutate freely has recently left us with millions of acres of boarded up homes, dead malls, rejected icons, shrinking towns, and piles of expired ‘value-carriers. In and against this milieu we should conceive of an architecture with intrinsic value.24 22 A. Maffei(ed.), Toyo Ito: Works Projects Writings, London: Phaidon Press, 2002, p. 9.

23 E. Lifson, ‘Q&A: Kengo Kuma—An Architecture of Relationships’, MetropolisMag.com, [webpage], 2010, http://www.metropolismag.com/ pov/20100402/qan-architecture-of-relationships, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

24 ‘ “Relations” The SANAA Studios 2006–2008: Learning from Japan: Single Story Urbanism’, SO-IL, 2009, Para. 8, http://so-il.org/writing/relations/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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Relational architecture is SANAA’s means to restore intrinsic social value. It responses to the trend of disintegrating of physical relation by doing social stitching through physical interfaces and exchanges at a spatial backdrop.

Although the space does not dictate, it suggests open-ended possibilities of programs that encourage physical face-to-face interaction of users. They use models to test out relational scheme. They consider physical reality to evoke spatial quality ideal for relational activities to take place. Although relational activities have been encouraged and enabled by the architecture of the learning centre, relational activities still require active instigation by the participants, after all. This was beyond architects’ ability to dictate.

Physical model making, rather than two dimensional representation media such as rendering or digital representation, has been the primary method to visualise space and present work (Fig. 77): ‘I think from a practical stand point, we believe in the power of physical models to test certain designs, we believe in toning down, or at least we try to get to the essence of an idea.’25 Digital representation such as rendering could be selective; whereas physical model making would reveal the honest spatial quality. There are no colours, graphics and other effects to play up desirable qualities and mask unwanted effects. This does not restrict their innovation spatially and physically. They remain attuned to the possibilities of contemporary technology and do not reproduce conventional models. Sasaki, the structural engineer, has worked closely with SANAA throughout the project. ‘Sensitivity analysis’ was used to design the freely curved surface of the shell. The architects were able to constantly feed their ideal conditions into this program created by Sasaki, enabling an iterative design process with the feedback received from it.26

SANAA has not published theoretical treatises to date and does not have rhetorical manifesto. SANAA’s works are ‘physical expressions of one who responds freely to reality’27. Sejima’s time in Toyo Ito’s office might partially be the training of this approach. For instance, in designing Pao - dwellings for Tokyo Nomad Women (Fig. 78), she intended to achieve ‘weightlessness’ and ‘openness’ envisioned by Ito’s conceptual vision. Sejima did not inherit that ideological, Utopian approach from Ito, but picked up how Ito made use of materials and structures to manifest weightlessness28. She builds objects by focusing on reality and creates programmes based on realistic research into how building will be used, the field experiment discussed earlier being one of the examples.

25 F. Idenburg(ed.), “Relations” in The SANAA Studios 2006 - 2008. Learning From Japan: Single Story Urbanism, Baden: Lars Muller Publishers, 2010, p. 74.

26 Y. Hasegawa(ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012, p. 28.

27 Ibid, p. 7.

28 Ibid, p. 7.

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Fig. 77: Exploration Technique of Model Making by SANAA. (Source: Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, 2012) http://floramilanarch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/salto-architects-vehicle-bridge-in.html

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Fig. 78: Pao I Interior view 1985 (top), Pao II suspended 1989 (bottom).

(Source: Socks Studio, 2016.)

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86

c o n c l u s i o n_

On the Case Studies Internal circulation in a fluid architecture must not be over prescriptive to allow for the proliferation of social relation, specifically to the typology and its philosophy to be considered as a socially progressive model. The fluid container should not restrict its fluid relations contained.

MAXXI’s prescriptive circulation designed by ramps and stairs has served as an antithesis- restricting manifestation of the twenty first century art philosophy, which is to stage an open-ended social platform. Its complexity resulted in a unique museum experience that is dynamic yet distracting. The architectural experience may have been overpowering considering its major function; which is to house artworks. This spatial complexity has also been overpowering as to restrict open-ended accessibility of art to the public or relational encounters.

It was argued that the complexity does not come from the brief requirement; but the architect’s conceptual envisioning of the building as a fluid trajectory from the neighbourhood. The fluid conceptual diagram was placed in comparison to Hadid’s affinity in architectural representation, of which burgeoned before she was joined by her partner Schumacher. The theorisation of Fluid Totality and similar ideals took place only after this association. The danger of mimicking natural systems in the fluid agendas lies in the lack of acknowledgment of human’s cognitive ability and existing semiotic understanding.

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On the contrary, the Rolex Learning Centre took on a different approach in terms of the building fabric; the physical elements are restrained, allowing for unlimited trajectories and potential encounters amongst users.

The diagram of a functional seamless whole in the Rolex Learning Centre allows the synthesis of faculties of the university by empowering people to easily agglomerate in the polyphonic setting. This is a manifestation of the relationalist approach, whereby the aesthetic lies in the ad hoc relations amongst the users.

Both the spatial organisation and physical articulation of the Rolex Learning Centre reflected the architect’s cultural influence. Temporality, spontaneity and mobility exemplified traditional Japanese social structure, and these qualities are said to become increasingly apt in describing the liquid contemporary relation.

Via examination of these two case studies, it has been revealed that it is crucial for conceptual aspirations to be weighed against the physical reality, as often it is hard to draw concrete implications and societal function from an abstract notion.

The fluid physical elements in MAXXI, such as walls, beams, and ribs that have been used to ‘accentuate’ directionality of circulatory flow, have seen no apparent correlation on users’ movement, especially in a functional space. Relationship between visual order and social order could rarely be observed. The ‘curved movement’ that SANAA tried to recreate in their accounts of the strolls in the park, have been observed. But the relational activities or the face-to-face encounters still require occupants’ active engagement to occur, after all. As architects, SANAA has provided a platform that would maximise the relational activities, but if relational activities would really be taken place as aspired should be of another discussion.

Architects have to instigate a spatial agency and ensure that theoretical disposition is made tangible alongside their understanding of social ordering. Furthermore, they should not assume users’ behaviour and inhabitation patterns. Their designs should facilitate and maximise users’ agency in the built environment. _______________

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Fluid ideals is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution in providing societal function during inhabitation. With this, the vision of the fluid ideals and parametricism as the next universal epoch becomes questionable.

There are a pluralism of other models that could provide spatial and social agency as well, without involving creation of curves and unpractical construction processes. There is the ‘Junkspace’ typology with ‘ubiquitous space’ containing furniture of different scales and designs to provide unique niches.1 These niches provide choices which are at the same time ergonomic, as compared to the variegated but random results produced by continuous differentiation via parametricism. They could equally provide effective support for individual needs or collective interactions.

The architectural language of fluid models is still being seen as a novelty. The failure in disseminating the intended societal function which underlies the models, however, could present it as ‘an elite language spoken only by the few and sometimes misunderstood, more often ignore, by the many.’2 As Jeremy Till put it in Architecture Depends, ‘Others do not share the obsessions of architects with shadow gaps.’3

Till further associated ethics with social relations: Ethics, to go back to my understanding of it, is the responsibility for the other; it is, at its core, to do with the social relations. For the architect to engage in the ethical field therefore means to engage with how these (social) relations are played out in (social) space.4 The social functioning outlined in fluid agendas by ZHA and SANAA could be made more ethical and encompassing; by considering the social dynamics amongst multiple stakeholders during design and construction stages.

Do-it-yourself buildings such as Wiki-house is an exemplification of participatory model that sits at the end of the socially inclusive spectrum whereby design and construction phases are highly considered.5

1 C. McClellan, ‘The Google Effect’, 2013, http://www.carr-mcclellan.com/insights/the-google-effect-how-high-tech-companies-are-impactingbuilding-architecture-and-design/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

2 J. Till, Architecture Depends, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2009, p. 176.

3 J. Till, Architecture Depends, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2009, p. 176.

4 J. Till, Architecture Depends, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2009, p. 176.

5 WikiHouse Foundation, [Website], 2016, https://wikihouse.cc/, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

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Could fluid models benefit by incorporating participatory philosophies? How about making it available amongst the users to customize and self-construct curved surfaces for specific purposes, by considering individuals ergonomic? It may incite an unparalleled positivity, more significant than the current excitement seen due to its formal versatility.

On the other hand, does it even matter if fluid architecture is not socially progressive?

‘Mountains are not cones, clouds are not spheres, and rivers are not straight lines. We cannot deny that curves and bends has an inherent beauty.’6 Just as Kant stated: ‘if natural form exhibits beauty it is because of its harmony with the patterning faculties of human consciousness.’7 Not all architecture needs to aim at achieving progress socially. Iconic architecture has its worth in architectural history. It could be that the real potential of fluid architecture lies more on its formal novelty, and used for iconic purposes as in the ‘Bilbao effect’, after all.

The advantages are often not definite and highly dependent on specific circumstances.

Perhaps architects should embrace the function of curves and not force societal functioning on them. The practice of forcibly wedding aesthetic and its function could be described as a phony ethics, which is an antithesis to societal functioning intended, as described by Till: ‘The phony ethics of aesthetics and tectonics freeze that dynamic and place all attention on the contemplation of the object beautiful and refined, a state of removal for both viewer and viewed that can be reached only away from the flux of everyday space. In this, any connection to ethics as played out through social, spatial, relations is broken.’8

6 B. Mandelbrot, cited in C. Hubert, Natural Form,. http://www.christianhubert.com/writings/natural_form.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

7 Kant, ‘Critique of Judgement’, cited in C. Hubert, Natural Form, http://www.christianhubert.com/writings/natural_form.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

8 J. Till, Architecture Depends, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2009, p. 176.

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e n d_

91

a p p e n d i c e s_01 Architectural Drawings

Fig. 79: Plans: Level 0 & 1, MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome

by Zaha Hadid Architects (Source: http://www.fondazionemaxxi.it/en/)

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Fig. 80: Plans: Level 2 & 3, MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome

by Zaha Hadid Architects (Source: http://www.fondazionemaxxi.it/en/)

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10m

9

The graphical style of the plan

11

presents the building with the

8

appearance of a landscape,

6

with paths, amphitheatres, lakes 6

and pavilions. The reality of the spatial composition is much

5

more complex however. Open

4

areas of the building, in the

9

lower edge and left side of the

1

plan allow public and student interaction, protecting the working

2

areas around the perimeter from

10

intrusion. The brief requirements are gradated from the bottom to

7

the top (towards the campus) with

3 12

private working areas separated 10m

by the internal hills, and external courtyards from the public areas.

Top, Primary floor plan Bottom, Undercroft and external landscaping plan.

Previous Pages The Learning

1. Main entrance

Center. Photographs by James Kirk

2. Cafe

Fig. 81: Floor Plans, Sparrow in the Landscape EPFL Rolex Learning Fig.54. The Learning Center Centre, Lausanne by Undercroft SANAA

3. Food court

Fig.53.

Fig.55.

4. Bank 5. Bookshop 6. Offices

The Learning Center

7. Muitipurpose hall

(Source: Hasegawa Y.

Interior Landscape

8. Library

(ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu

Fig.56.

The Learning Center

9. Work area

Nishizawa SANAA, London: Restaurant

10. Ancient books collection

Phaidon Press,between 2012.)

Fig.57.

Interaction

11. Research collection

students in the Learning Center

12. Restaurant 10m

Fig.52.

Plans of SANAA’s Rolex Learning Center. Source: Detail Magazine (English Edition), Vol. 4, 2010.

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Fig. 82: Site Plans and Sections, EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne by SANAA (Source: Hasegawa Y. (ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012.)

Fig. : Section, EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne by SANAA

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a p p e n d i c e s_02 James Phillips Architectural Travel Prize

Fig. 83: Webpage of James Phillips Travel Prize.

(Source: http://www.jamesphillipsfoundation.com/travel-prizes-1/

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Travel Plan 9 days; 3 cities; 3 countries: 17/9/2016 - 20/9/2016

MAXXI, Metropolitan City of Rome, Italy - Record use of fluid common ground; collect survey and interview with authority 1 Campo de’ Fiori, Metropolitan City of Rome, Italy - Record and document use of traditional square typology Piazza Navona, Rome, Italy - Record and document use of traditional square typology Piazza del Campo, Sienna - Record Relational behaviour on ‘mountain-like’ square typology 2

1

21/9/2016 - 24/9/2016

Rolex Learning Center, Ecublens, Switzerland - Record use of fluid cmoon ground; collect site survey 3 Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland - Meeting up with authority to understand client’s brief Place de la Palud, Lausanne, Switzerland - Record and document use of traditional square typology

25/9/2016

BMW Trainingszentrum Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany 4

2

Estimation of Cost Flight

£500

Accommodation

(£40 x 8 nights) ~ £350

Miscellaneous(Meals, Visits, Transport)

(£40 x 9 days) ~ £360

Total Anticipated Expenditures

£1,210

Personal Contribution

£210

Total requested Amount

£1,000

3

4

Fig. 84: Proposed travel route for the case studies.

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Fluid Architecture for Common Ground The emergence of fluid ideal was definitely a strong trend to have observed amidst the urban disarticulation of world’s built environment over the past few decades. The ideal shows elegance of ordered complexity and the sense seamlessness; and rejects both production as repetition or the drive towards predetermined ends. Idea of fluidity exhibits in both spatial diagram/imagery and materiality and form.

Parametricism is one of the major enablers of the compositional versatility of the fluid model.

Through continuous differentiation, deep layering, and simultaneity, fluid architecture often appear to be crafted for spectacle. The controlled visual language of seamlessness in MAXXI, Rome, for instance, is rather paradoxical to its cultural public dimension with the notion of social freedom. It suggests a cognitive revolution to the cultural and civic common ground; but its potential is unclear.

Does the directional chanelling of circulatory flow in fluid models reject the bottom-up positive clashes of enclaves in the public domain? Could they be adapted as a global model considering the essense of ‘specificity’ of common ground?

Case Studies/Site Selections: The diagrams of both buildings are porous and can be liken to an immersive field condition: river-like in MAXXI and mountain-like in EPFL.

MAXXI Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome, Zaha Hadid

MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome utilises formalism of linear, streaming elements, such as parallel walls and spiralling ramps or stairs; augmented by branching and intersecting wall trajectories to create circulatory flow.

EPFL, SANAA set out interior landscape to instigate relational opportunities. It is as a response to the notion of disintegration of several elements: the institution’s dissolved interdisciplinary boundaries; interactivity and human movement; and the disintegration of physical relationship caused by virtual information age.

The idea of fluidity exhibited in the former appeared to be directional and top-down; and the latter to be non-hirarchical and passive. I am curious if these two distinct fluid models support the idea of common ground with regards to social freedom and specificity.

Academic Importance of the travel My interest in public space emerged from my undergraduate final year thesis; where I explored on how architecture should consider incorporation of the social freedom of common ground for social resilience. My exposure to parametric design in my Masters study this year on the other hand introduced me to fluid and parametric design. I am curious of the potential brought by clashes of the two.

I believe in experiencing at first hand to be crucial for both the dissertation and in my architecture career in a long run. I also hope the field trip to inform my final year design thesis.

EPFL Learning Centre, SANAA

“Give me a Gun and I will Make All Buildings Move.”

Bruno Latour and Albena Yaneva

methodology & representation: Time-based photographic and cinematic mapping to illustrate ‘ruses’ of the collective and individuals.

Critical reflection in comparison with results generated by crowd modelling software, architect’s built manifesto and literature review.

De Certeau refers to spaces as a series of trajectories, each of which are defined by the individual walker. The way that pedestrians walk and meander through an area delineates both their knowledge of a space and the interests they hold, “trace the ruses of other interests and desires that are neither determined nor captured by systems in which they develop”.

Fig. 85: Travel prize proposal for the case studies.

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Fig. 86: Case studies building visits are made possible thanks to the James Phillips Foundation. The photos of the travel will be made available to the foundation and the public.

(Photograph by Zhini Poh.)

99

Ethics declaration, Department of Architecture, University of Westminster

Name of student: ZHINI POH

Title of submitted work: FLUID ARCHITECTURE: Questioning the Validity of Fluid Architecture as a Socially Pro-

gressive Model through Case Studies

Nature of submitted work (ie. Extended Essay, Dissertation): M.Arch Dissertation Declaration: I understand the University’s Code of Practice governing the Ethical Conduct of Research and confirm that my research has been fully compliant with all ethical requirements.

Signed: Zhini Poh Date: 08-01-2017

100

Bibliography Books and Journal Articles Angelidou I., ‘Inhabited Natures’, San Rocco #2 Summer 2011, The Even Covering Of The Field, 2011.

Bauman Z., Liquid Modernity, London: Polity Press, 2000.

Benham R., The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, 2nd Edn, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Beck U., Interview with Jonathan Rutherford, UK, SAGE Publications Ltd, 2002, cited in Z. Bauman, Liquid Modernity, London: Polity Press.

Ghadim G. T., ‘Geometry, Form and Structure Relationship in Blob, Liquid and Formless Architecture’, Master of Science Thesis, Eastern Mediterranean University, 2013.

Giovannini J. and Mertins D., Zaha Hadid: Thirty Years of Architecture Hadid, New York: Guggenheim Museum Publishing, 2006.

Hasegawa Y. (ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012.

Idenburg F. (ed.), ‘Relations’ in The SANAA Studios 2006 - 2008. Learning From Japan: Single Story Urbanism, Baden: Lars Muller Publishers, 2010.

Institute of Architecture, Hadid Z. and Schumacher P., Fluid Totality: Studio Zaha Hadid 2000-2015. University of Applied Arts Vienna, Basel: Birkhauser, 2015.

Koolhaas R., Junkspace, Massachusettes: The MIT Press, 2002. Available from: JStor, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

Kracauer S., The Mass Ornament, trans. T.Y. Levin, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Last N., ‘Architecture and the Image of Fluidity’, GLOBALIZING ARCHITECTURE/ Flows and Disruptions, Miami Beach, 2015.

Lazzarato M., ‘Immaterial Labour’, in P. Virno and M. Hardt(ed), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Maffei A. (ed.), Toyo Ito: Works Projects Writings, London: Phaidon Press, 2002.

Parent C., Virilio P., Mostafavi M., The Function of the Oblique: The Architecture of Claude Parent and Paul Virilio 1963-1969, London: Architectural Association

Publications, 1996.

Polo A.Z., The Politics of the envelope. Available from: JStor, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

Poole M. and Shvartzberg M., The Politics of Parametricism: Digital Technologies in Architecture, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

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List of Images

Fig. 12: Jenck’s Evolutionary Tree (opposite) to outline positions of movements in relation to ‘Fluidity’. These movements are deconstruction, folding,

Fig. 1: MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome by Zaha Hadid Architects.

Photograph by Zhini Poh.

blobitecture, new complexity paradigm, iconic building, etc. There no definite names for these movements or styles. Source: J. Hill,[website], 2015,

Fig. 2: The EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne by SANAA. Photograph by Zhini Poh. http://archidose.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/charles-jenckss-evolving-evolutionary.html, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 3: Gaseous. Source: ‘Liquid Smoke’, Texture101, [Website], 2017, http://texSource: (1. Design Bloom, [website], 2013, http://www.designboom.com/artures101.com/view/4463/Smoke/Liquid_Smoke, (accessed 2 Jan. 2017). chitecture/zaha-hadid-celebrates-20-year-anniversary-of-vitra-fire-station/, Fig. 4: Liquid. Source: ‘North America Water’, The Nature Conservacy, [Website], (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

2017, 2. D. Plick, The Value of Architecture, [website], 2015, https://www.thevaluehttp://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/riverslakes/north-americas-freshwa- ofarchitecture.com/blog/what-is-deconstructivist-architecture/, (accessed 4 ter.xml, (accessed 2 Jan. 2017).

Jan. 2017).

Fig. 5: Liquid. Source: ‘Water Spray Liquid’, HD Wallwide, [Website], 2014, http:// 3. R. J. Seymour, Metalocus, [website], 2014, http://www.metalocus.es/en/ www.hdwallwide.com/water-spray-liquid-hd-wallpaper-1080p/, (accessed 2 Jan. news/22-years-nothing-new-kunsthall-oma, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

2017).

4. WebUrbanist, [website], 2010, http://weburbanist.com/2010/08/08/bloFig. 6: Mutually accentuating systems: topography, massing, path-network, Master-

bitecture-11-cool-ways-architecture-gets-a-round/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

plan Competition, Appur, India, ZHA, 2008. Source: Schumacher P., ‘Parametric Diagrams’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, A New Style Parametricism, http://

5. Mariordo, [website], 2012, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gug-

www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/Parametric%20Diagrammes.html, (accessed 28 genheim_Bilbao_06_2012_Panorama_2680.jpg, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Dec. 2016).

6. Ruggero Arena, [website], 2017, http://www.ruggeroarena.com/so-

Fig. 7: Network script accentuates undulated surface – Maren Klasing & Martin Krcha, ny-dsc-89/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Masterclass Hadid, University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Source: Schumacher P., ‘Parametric Diagrams’, patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, A New Style Parametricism,

7. Gr, [website], 2016, http://www.kjprofit.com/69/zaha-hadid-architect-buildings-22-12-2016/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

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Fig. 8: The Fluid appearance and built form. Galaxy Soho by ZHA.Source: I.Baan, Arch daily, [website], 2012, http://www.archdaily.com/287571/galaxy-soho-zaha-had-

com/architecture/sanaa-junko-fukutake-terrace-okayama-university-09-10-2015/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

id-architects/508ee07a28ba0d7fde000005-galaxy-soho-zaha-hadid-architects-pho- 9. M. Fairs, dezeen, [website], 2010, https://www.dezeen.com/2010/02/17/ rolex-learning-center-by-sanaa/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).)

to, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 9: Bespoke Cladding over Structural elements. Heydar Aliyev Center by ZHA. Fig. 11: Function of the Oblique, Diagram by Architecture Principe group.

Source: I.Baan, Arch daily, [website], 2013, http://www.archdaily.com/448774/hey- Source: Parent C., Virilio P., Mostafavi M., The Function of the Oblique, London: Architectural Association Publications, 1996, p. 12.

dar-aliyev-center-zaha-hadid-architects, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

104

Fig. 12: Kunsthal, Rotterdam by Rem Koolhaas. Source: J. J. Barba, Metalocus, further from the exhibits. There was almost no attention paid to the architectural 2015, http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/22-years-nothing-new-kunsthall-oma

elements including the partitions.

Fig. 13: Tron Legacy Set has striking resemblances (left) to Heydar Aliyev Center Fig. 26: Superimpose of stills from time-lapse filming. Photograph by Zhini Poh.

by ZHA (right).

Fig. 27: Panoramic view of the Flaminia Neighbourhood in cantilevering gallery.

Source: SkyscraperCity.com, [Website], 2011, http://www.skyscrapercity.com/ Photograph by Zhini Poh. showthread.php?t=289448&page=12, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 28: Conceptual vector diagrams: MAXXI, Rome, 2009 and BMW Central Build-

Hufton+Crow, arch daily, [Website], 2013, http://www.archdaily.com/448774/ ing, Leipzig by ZHA, 2005. Source: ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPT AND URBAN STRATheydar-aliyev-center-zaha-hadid-architects, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 14: Google Effect. Source: Manhattan Office Design, [Website],2016, http:// www.manhattanofficedesign.com/single-post/2016/03/02/The-Google-Effect-Is-Overtaking-Offices, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 15: MAXXI Atrium. Photograph by Zhini Poh. Fig. 16: MAXXI from North Entrance. Photograph by Zhini Poh. Fig. 17: MAXXI Gallery 02. Photograph by Zhini Poh.

EGY, USC.edu, [Website], 2013, http://www.usc.edu/dept/comp-lit/tympanum/3/ zaha2.html, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).Source: D. Spencer, The Journal of Architecture Vol. 15 No. 2, 2010.

Fig. 29: Stills from time-lapse video of the MAXXI courtyard. Children were observe to creatively interacting with the differentiated landscape. Photograph by Zhini Poh. Fig. 30: (Top) Children using linear pavings as racing tracks in MAXXI Courtyard.

(Bottom all) Differentiated landscapes/furniture for different uses. Photograph by

Fig. 18: MAXXI from Courtyard. Photograph by Zhini Poh.

Zhini Poh.

Fig. 19: MAXXI site context. Source: google map., (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 31: Temporary structures in MAXXI reflecting spatial agency: Play structures

Fig. 20: Aerial View of MAXXI and Flaminia Neighbourhood, Rome. Source: Schumacher P., ‘The Meaning of MAXXI – Concepts, Ambitions, Achievements’,

in the courtyard (left & mid.), partitions to hold exhibitions (right). Photograph by Zhini Poh.

patrickschumacher.com, [website], 2010, The Art Museum as Catalyst, http:// Fig. 32: Exterior of the learning centre. Photograph by Zhini Poh. www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html, (accessed 28 Dec. 2016).

Fig. 21: Site Context Strategy Diagrams.

Fig. 22: Linearity in gallery spaces. Photograph by Zhini Poh. Fig. 23: Set-up of Mapping exercises.

Fig. 33: Exterior. Photograph by Zhini Poh. Fig. 34: Entrance. Photograph by Zhini Poh. Fig. 63: Floor Plan, EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne by SANAA. A continuous fluid space with cellular courtyards. Source: Hasegawa Y. (ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012.

Fig. 24: Stills from time-lapse filming, featuring the subject in black shirt (high- Fig. 64 & 65: The undulated floor planes. Photograph by Zhini Poh. lighted in orange in first image) who was looking at the exhibit.

Fig. 25: The subject involved in Mapping 01 drifted front and back, closer and

Fig. 66 & 67: Plateaus for furniture. Photograph by Zhini Poh. Figure 68: Mapping 03 Stills from time-lapse filming. Photograph by Zhini Poh. 105

Fig. 69: Superimpose of stills from time-lapse filming. Photograph by Zhini Poh.

Source: MAXXI, ‘Museo Map’, [Website], 2017, http://www.fondazionemaxxi.

Fig. 70: Diagrammatic perspective outlining movement recorded by the time-lapse filming in relation to the sloped floor plane.

it/en/mappa-del-museo/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 81: Floor Plans, EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne by SANAA. Source:

Fig. 71: Plan diagram showing movement, path recorded and access of spaces in proximity.

Fig. 72: Modernist tower block typology (left) and EPFL Learning Centre (right). The latter manifests ‘equivalence of spaces’: non-hierarchical and democratic space in terms of more equal relation with the exterior.

Fig. 73: Cylindrical glazed courtyard interior (left) and exterior view (right). Photograph

by Zhini Poh.

Hasegawa Y. (ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012.

Fig. 82: Site Plans and Sections, EPFL Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne by SANAA. Source: Hasegawa Y. (ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012.

Fig. 83: Webpage of James Philips Travel Prize.Source: The James Phillips Foundation, [Website], 2017,http://www.jamesphillipsfoundation.com/travel-prizes-1/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 75: Field Experiment on ‘Relational’ idea: Set Up (top) and process (bottom).

Source: Packing light(user), Flickr, [Website], 2009, https://www.flickr.com/photos/ packinglight/3942936201/in/photostream/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 76: More temporary elements were opted for many zones. Photograph by Zhini Poh.

Fig. 84: Proposed travel route for the case studies.

Fig. 85: Travel prize proposal for the case studies.

Fig. 86: Case studies building visits are made possible thanks to the James Philips Foundation. The photos of the travel will be made available to the foundation and the public. Photograph by Zhini Poh.

Fig. 77: Exploration Technique of Model Making by SANAA. Source: Hasegawa Y. (ed.), Kezuyo Sejima + Ryu Nishizawa SANAA, London: Phaidon Press, 2012.

Fig. 78: Pao I Interior view 1985 (top), Pao II suspended 1989 (bottom).

M. Fabrizi, SOCKS, [Website], 2010, http://socks-studio.com/2016/02/07/pao-dwellings-for-the-tokyo-nomad-woman-by-toyo-ito-1985-and-1989/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 79: Plans: Level 0 & 1, MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome by Zaha Hadid Architects Source: MAXXI, ‘Museo Map’, [Website], 2017, http://www.fondazionemaxxi.it/en/ mappa-del-museo/, (accessed 4 Jan. 2017).

Fig. 80: Plans: Level 2 & 3, MAXXI, Museum of Arts of the XXI century, Rome by Zaha Hadid Architects.

106

Disserta�on M.Arch Architecture RIBA Part II, University of Westminster, London